Mando-pop king Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Taiwanese-Australian model/actress Hannah Quinlivan (昆凌) were married in Yorkshire, England, on Saturday afternoon in an extravagant ceremony featuring a string ensemble playing a composition by Chou.
The ceremony at Selby Abbey, in the town of Selby, came the day before Chou’s 36th birthday.
Quinlivan, 21, wore a heavily embroidered ball gown and a NT$33.38 million (US$1.05 million) tiara and necklace worth NT$278.1 million by French jeweler Chaumet.
Photo: Courtesy of JVR Music
Chou said he wrote a song for his marriage “to make the wedding different.”
The Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday said the ceremony was believed to have cost more than NT$20 million, including accommodation for guests, which it said cost about NT$10 million.
Chou did not accept any sponsorship for the wedding.
Photo: CNA
However, it was not clear yesterday whether the Selby Abbey ceremony was actually a wedding or a “blessing” service.
According to the abbey’s Web site, under UK law, to be married in the abbey would require at least one of the couple to have lived in the parish of Selby Abbey, attended services for a set period there, or had a parent or grandparent married at the abbey.
According to JVR Music, the couple registered their marriage last year. It is unclear whether the marriage was registered in Taiwan or another country.
Chou’s record and management company, JVR Music, on Saturday released three engagement photographs of the couple that were taken in France, Germany and the Czech Republic in October last year.
One of the photos shows the couple facing each other with the Prague’s historic Charles Bridge the background.
Another shows Quinlivan in a long white dress embracing Chou, who is wearing a white shirt and dark vest and pants, next to a horse in a pasture, with the iconic Bavarian castle of Neuschwanstein in the background.
This story has been amended since it was first published to correct the date of the wedding.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
RSS